Innocence
by Uphill Both Ways
Summary: Gareki knows that it would be oh-so-easy to taint this fragile boy. GarekiNai.


Innocence.

It's something Gareki had never truly known—taken from him before he had to chance to experience it. He was 15 and already lost his childhood, born an old man in the streets while the boy inside never had time to grow up. Sold from the time he could remember—his body _used_, _beaten_, _ravished_—the sentiment of joy or hope never reached his life.

And perhaps that was why, as he watched Nai slumbering peacefully, he held a strong distaste and admiration for the young boy. From the day Gareki crossed paths with Nai, innocence poured from his veins. Innocence so strong and so unadulterated that _burning_ _envy_ crept along the brunette's stomach when he laid eyes on him. The forest boy was so peaceful and so trusting—it screamed temptation at the teen. So Gareki followed, lured by lust and abhorrence towards this strange child's innocence, _craving_ for the time to taint him. To carve the same pit of distrust into Nai that he himself sheltered.

Gareki watches as the moon-washed form of the boy rises and falls slowly in time with his breathing, and the way the light caresses the soft face that has yet to be sharpened by maturity. The white glow seems to add an ethereal halo on the sleeping child's face, adding to the sickening amount of innocence that reflected from him.

Gareki pretends he doesn't care. Pretends he doesn't notice the gnawing in his chest that comes with every passing second that he stares at Nai. Pretends that temptation isn't a little voice of the devil in his ear telling him to '_do it, do it, it would be so easy_…' Most of all, Gareki pretends like he doesn't realize how very _easy_ it would be to _break_ this fragile boy. How quickly the innocence his companion held could be shattered.

All is silent in the ship, save for the distant humming of the engine, and Gareki can hear the buzzing of his own thoughts as his eyes focus numbly on Nai's bed from the window. The brunette glances back at the night sky, cursing the stars and heavens, anyone who would listen, for his unwanted desires, knowing that if they wouldn't listen _then_ that they'd have no reason to help out now.

15. He was so young. Too _young_ to have had professional experience with pick-pocketing and robbery, to know how to pick a lock in under 3 seconds or where a person's vital spots were for in close combat. Gareki was young, and Nai was younger still, but youth and innocence didn't always click.

Yogi; he acted innocent, though was anything but. Gareki knew this, and he _hated_ it, because he wouldn't _ever_ bother pretending to know what such bliss was like. He detested the cheery blond because Gareki could see the familiar pain reflected in the man's eyes, but Yogi disguised it with a childish disposition which burned at Gareki's patience with the word '_liar'_ ever present in his mind. While Yogi acted like an innocent buffoon, Gareki took up his cross and acted the age he felt, took responsibility that he shouldn't have to take, and snapped at anyone who tried to tell him to let it go.

The urging is back as Gareki snaps his thought away from the older blond, while Nai shifts around on the bed. Gareki moves, his body commands him to while his mind remains numb and thoughtless, and sways beside the bunk bed that he shares with Nai. The brunette ducks underneath the top bunk, to seat himself beside the slumbering form, never taking his eyes off of the boy the whole while. Innocent. Pure. White. Nai was all these things, all these things that Gareki wasn't, all these things that could be altered in an instant if Gareki so chose to make a move—

And he almost _does_; his hand hovers above the boy's face, the warm breath hitting his fingers as his options dance before his eyes, but he simply brushes the tips of his fingers against Nai's cheeks before returning his hand to his side. Gareki remembers; remembers the rough hands and greedy eyes of the men he was sold to—remembers the disgusting way they traced his skin and left him bruised, battered, and thoroughly humiliated. Remembers the dirty _lust_ that was so easy to spot in the master's eyes—that he could spot in _any_ human's eyes now if he tried. The only person who he never saw greed or lust flash through was Nai. And maybe that's why he resists the desire to teach those sins to him. Or maybe that's what kept the temptation eating away at Gareki.

Again, like he does every night, this moonlit ritual, Gareki slips away from the edge of Nai's bed, the springs creaking softly in protest as his form retreats and he relocated to his own bunk. Again, he's left Nai untainted, the destruction of the boy's purity another night surrendered. Because he can't help wanting to nurture that boy's innocence while he can still hold on to it, even if it means envying it from a distance. Because he wants to see how his own life could've turned out if the choice to maintain his purity was presented to him.

But mostly because every time Gareki gets the urge to paint the white canvass of Nai's innocence, he relates his desires to that of the men who forcefully took his _own_ canvass away, painting a life of distrust and abuse on his childhood without even asking him, and Gareki wants nothing to do with those despicable humans.

Either way, Gareki wants to preserve Nai's innocence for now, no matter how jealous he may get, he'll let the boy live the life he never had.

But when Nai looses his innocence, Gareki wants to be the one to taint him.

When Nai gives it up, Gareki wants it to be his _choice_.


End file.
